Received:
19
November
2010
Received in final form:
22
February
2011
Published online:
27
April
2011

Abstract

We study the scattering of ultracold atoms by a conducting cylindrical wire with total
absorption near the surface of the wire. A hierarchy of approximations for the exact
nonretarded atom-wire potential is explored. We show the existence of a semiclassical
region near to the surface of the wire, which allows us to unambiguously define incoming
boundary conditions for the description of total absorption at the wire surface. The
semiclassical region is only reproduced by an accurate treatment of the potential. We
calculate the complex s-wave scattering length for the effective
two-dimensional atom-wire scattering problem. The scattering length tends to the wire
radius R in the thick-wire limit, and it tends to 0 nearly as
(ln R)-1 in the thin-wire limit.